Boston arts groups strong in number But report shows funding favors large organizations

Maureen Dezell, Boston Globe

oston is home to more arts organizations per capita than any major metropolitan area, according to the preliminary results of a Boston Foundation study that compares funding for arts and culture in 10 major American cities.

Instead, the announcement [that Clear Channel Entertainment had signed up the Boston Ballet production booted out of the Wang Center for the Performing Arts] highlighted the ever more complicated dynamic between homegrown cultural institutions and the deep-pocketed, corporate outsiders.

Facing debt, Wang to produce its own shows....Instead of relying on touring Broadway musicals to anchor its season, the nonprofit Wang will produce or coproduce its own shows, with an emphasis on “event musicals” and family entertainment. Among these will be “White Christmas,” which the Wang plans to make a biennial holiday-season attraction. ....Most of the Wang’s major commercial offerings have done dismal business this season, Spaulding acknowledged. “They all lost money. ‘The King and I’ lost money, ‘Big River’ lost a half a million dollars,” he said, shaking his head.

‘White Christmas’ slated for Wang’s holiday marqueeLooking for another holiday-season smash, the Wang Center for the Performing Arts will produce its own version of Irving Berlin’s musical “White Christmas.”

The production, opening Nov. 25 and directed by Broadway veteran Walter Bobbie, is meant to give the Wang a money-maker that can alternate each holiday season with “The Radio City Christmas Spectacular.”

Investments, new events star in Wang Center plans In the competitive world of commercial theater production, investing early in some of the hottest shows on Broadway and beyond has become the Wang Center for the Arts’ new strategy for winning audiences.. “Is there a risk (in these kinds of investments)? Yes,” says Wang Center president and CEO Josiah A. Spaulding Jr. “But if you look at the choices we’ve made, they reflect both our mission and the interest our audiences have in these products.”

Citigroup bought naming rights for the Wang Center in Boston. This stimulated an interesting opinion piece by Joan Vennochi in yesterday's Globe:

Quote:

Lost legacy in the name game....Bemoaning the transformation from local to global economy and, with it, the loss of familiar names and industry icons is a sentimental indulgence that ignores economic reality. Money talks; it always did and always will. But An Wang’s personal investment in a center for performing arts is worth contemplating for another reason: its definition of legacy.

The Wang center was doing fine (as far as I know) until a few years ago when Josiah Spaulding decided to kick out Boston Ballet's Nutcracker for a chance at the big money Rocketts (sp?).

I've never been to the Wang since and I'm sure I'm not alone. His lack of loyalty to the local Arts organizations was breathtaking and now he moans about a lack of an audience? Perhaps he should understand us arts goers a little better: we support the Arts and those that do. We don't support those organizations that don't.

It was a blow to the ballet to lose the Wang as its venue for Nutcracker, but to be fair I'll note that the rest of Boston Ballet's season *is* performed at the Wang. The Wang-now-Citigroup Center includes the Shubert theater across the street as well as the Wang Theater. There have been programs sponsored by the Wang to support local arts groups and I expect there will continue to be such programs. One such program is a day of dance, with demonstrations and short classes presented by local companies large and small, open to the public for free.

Boston Ballet is now presenting Nutcracker at the Opera House, which is smaller but beautiful. During the holidays there are two shows at the Wang on alternate years - the Rockettes road show that does make a lot of money, and another holiday extravaganza produced by the Wang-now-Citigroup organization. This year they are back to the Rockettes.

There are many fine dance programs at the Wang and Shubert, and it would be against our own interest to boycott them because of the loss of the Nutcracker.

Celebrity Series loses Bank of America’s chief sponsorshipBank of America yesterday announced it was withdrawing as chief sponsor of the Celebrity Series, a major blow to one of the region’s leading arts presenters.

The move means the Celebrity Series, which puts on roughly 50 classical music and dance performances a year in Symphony Hall, Jordan Hall, and a host of other sites, will lose about $600,000 of its $7 million annual operating budget. The bank’s name will be dropped from the title of the series.

.... Already, the Celebrity Series has announced it will not be able to bring an internationally renowned company like the Kirov to Boston as a result of the loss of sponsorship.

Boston plans to open the city’s first arts-themed middle school as soon as the fall of 2008, with a focus on the visual and performing arts.

The school, which school officials expect to have 240 sixth- to eighth-graders admitted by lottery, will incorporate the arts in every class in some way. Students will perform plays in English class, for example, or produce an animated movie to show their understanding of various principles in math, or study the life of a dancer to learn about biology and physiology in science. Each will take classes in voice, dance, instrumental music, and theater.

In the Boston Globe, Goeff Edgers reports on yet another budget cut by Josiah Spaulding of the Citi Performing Arts Center (which includes the Wang Theater where Boston Ballet performs). Not about dance but still a sad commentary on what is happening in Spaulding's organization:
[url=http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2007/07/22/unkindest_cut_bard_to_run_short_on_common/]Unkindest cut? Bard to run short on Common - Shakespeare hit in budget crunch[/url]

And now, in the Boston Globe, Geoff Edgers reports on Spaulding's bonus:

Quote:

Amid struggles, arts center chief got $1.2m bonusNot long before the Citi Performing Arts Center decided to make drastic cuts to its popular summer production of Shakespeare on the Boston Common, its board agreed to pay president and CEO Josiah Spaulding Jr., a $1.265 million bonus.

That payment came on top of Spaulding’s annual compensation of $409,000, plus $23,135 in benefits. Spaulding’s salary alone already makes him one of the highest-paid leaders of a performing arts center in the country.

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